


The Beauty of Spring

by LyricaXXX (LyricaB)



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Lewis Fright Fest 2016, M/M, Vampire AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 06:10:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8434651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyricaB/pseuds/LyricaXXX
Summary: I offered up my veins the moment I realized what he had become.





	

**Author's Note:**

>   
> _Weirdness. Much, much stylistic weirdness. I remember that the last lines were the genesis of this, and that from there, the rest just sort flowed out without much conscious creation on my part. Why it flowed out in this style and tone…I have no idea. My muse and I must have been drinking. I’m not sure what. Probably a blood cocktail. {g}_  
>   
> 
>  _More thanks than words can convey to_[Owlbsurfinbird](http://archiveofourown.org/users/owlbsurfinbird), who roused herself during a bout of illness to read this story (and _my vampire novella, which we decided wasn’t quite ready for posting). This story has languished on my hard drive for a couple of years because I thought it was too weird to share. Without her feedback, I would have never had the confidence to post it._  
>   
> 

* * *

  
  


> People talk about the beauty of the spring,  
>  but I can't see it. The trees are brown and bare,  
>  slimy with rain. Some are crawling with  
>  new purple hairs. And the buds are bulging  
>  like tumorous acne, and I can tell that something wet,  
>  and soft, and cold, and misshapen is about to be born.
> 
> And I am turning into a vampire.  
>                                                             _Thirsty_ , M.T. Anderson

  
  


I see it in her quickly averted gazes. In the rigid line of her spine as she turns away.

She cannot bear to look at him now…since the changing. 

He looks the same—same soft brown hair shot through with grey, same sky blue eyes, same marks of age and laughter creasing his face—but different. He’s paler, cool and indolent. And brighter, as if a fire burns under his ivory skin, inside his amazing heart. 

He moves differently, without haste, with astonishing strength. He has a grace and a power that he never had before, an unconscious arrogance in the way he holds himself, a vibrant stillness as he examines the world with the eyes of a newborn. His goodness, though, his gentle humour, the basic kindness that is such an intrinsic part of him, is unchanged.

When he touches me, it’s with care and tenderness, as if he’s ever aware of the harm his new strength can inflict. As if he’s awed by the power I freely cede to him. When he feeds from me, when he takes me, he moves slowly, so slowly, with such caution, such languor. As if he has all the time in the world. And I suppose that’s only natural. Because, now, he _has_ all the time in the world. He has forever. 

Sometimes... Sometimes when he’s sleeping, and I know he can’t hear my thoughts, I wish he had touched me before, when he was simply old, instead of now that he’s old-made-young-again. I imagine that before he was changed, when he was clumsy and loose-jointed, he would have shoved himself into me with roughness and impatience. 

Sometimes, in secret, I wish for the inexperienced, frenzied lover I imagine he would have been... blushing sweetly at his own forbidden desire, touching me in the dark with urgency, clumsy in his rush to have me. I dream of him pushing into me before I’m ready. Spilling into me before I can match his excitement. 

It’s my guilty secret. A shameful one. To wish for before, for frenzy and awkwardness, when I have so much. It seems greedy and ungrateful, considering that I have his heart and his mind and his languid, careful, blood-soaked caresses. I have _him_. He drinks living blood, filled with heartbeats, only from me. He spills himself, blood-tinged semen, hot and acrid, into me. During the day, he curls his powerful, unnaturally cool body around me, wraps his arms around me. He touches only me now.

She turned her face away, once she knew what he had become. What _we_ had become. 

To her credit, she didn’t forsake his friendship. She supplied bags of cold, dead blood until my body adapted to his needs. She kept our secret. She keeps it still. She hides what he is, lies for him, covers for him, protects him. She protects _us_. But, still, she averts her gaze when he enters the room. And fear darkens her blue eyes if he ventures too near. 

What is it she fears? What is it she can’t bear to see... Is it what he is now? Or what he is with me? 

I don’t know. We haven’t spoken of it. She can’t look at him, but she won’t speak to me. I only know that her thoughts crease her pale face and pour a murky haze into her soul. I only know that, when she looks at me, there are razors in her eyes. 

Maybe she burns at what I have and what she does not. Maybe it’s only that she wishes to understand my choice. Maybe she wonders what she would have done had she been there the day he died and lived. When he woke, weak and ravenous. Fading for need of blood. 

Maybe she wonders whether she would have offered up her veins the way I did the moment I realized what he had become, the moment I understood what he needed. There was no hesitation before I gave myself. No uncertainty in my heart. No reluctance. Even after he hurt me in his inexperience, even after he nearly killed me with his hunger, I did not regret my choice. I was there when he woke from the stupor of that first feeding. I held him as he mourned what he had become, danced naked in the autumn moonlight with him as he gloried in what he had become.

Maybe she wonders whether she would have averted her gaze that night. I only know I did not avert mine. I was in thrall then. I was in thrall before. I am in thrall now.

I am here at his side still, even now that I know what it means to stay. I’ve given up all that I had, all that I knew, all that I was, to bind myself to him. I offer up my wrist. My throat. My blood. My body. My life. 

I feel sorrow for what I’ve stolen from her. For experiencing the joy she will never know… The feel of him, the taste of him. The weight of him, moving above me. The heat of him, in me. The touch of his mind, sleepy and warm, as he wakes. The languid ecstasy. The blood. Knowing what I’ve gained and what she’s lost, how could I feel otherwise? 

For he’s mine now. He will belong to no other in this lifetime nor in the next if he’ll have me. For that, I feel elation. Another guilty secret... 

I think he’d be disappointed in me if he knew my cupidity. If he knew how glad I feel that I, and not she, was the one with him when he first woke from the turning. He’d shake his head and frown. His sweet smile would turn to disapproval if he knew how fiercely jubilant I am that, by accident and necessity, he belongs only to me now. 

“James...” His voice echoes in my mind as he wakes. 

And I look away from the setting sun, away from the birdsong of spring, and my heart lifts into shadow. 

She cannot bear to look at him. And I cannot bear to look away. 

 

###  
  



End file.
